


Her Mother's Legacy

by Llama1412



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Ciri has ADHD/ADD, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23696983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412
Summary: Ciri had always had trouble with schooling. So if Geralt wants to train her in monster lore, he's going to have to do some things for her.Featuring ways Pavetta helped Ciri figure out how to manage her ADHD.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Pavetta (The Witcher)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	Her Mother's Legacy

Ciri’s mother had died when she was young. For all that Pavetta had been Princess of a magnificent kingdom, Ciri often felt that she had very little of her mother left.

Now, she had nothing. Not even her mother’s ring, which she hadn’t even traded for something properly important like food! The last thing she had of her mothers, and she’d given it up for a pair of gloves.

Ciri would never get that ring back. Just like she wouldn’t get back  _ anything _ physical she had of her family. Her parents, then her Grandfather, then her Grandmother and Mousesack and everyone she had ever known – they all left her with nothing to remember them by.

That wasn’t acceptable. So Ciri readied herself to barge into Vesemir’s office, where he and Geralt were discussing her training.

“The lessons have to be songs.” She said. The two witchers blinked at her. “I can’t learn from books. I can’t pay attention to them. You have to make them songs. And there are some things I need.” She presented the neatly written list to Geralt. Just because she hated reading didn’t mean her handwriting had to look like it, her Grandmother used to say.

Geralt frowned at her list and passed it to Vesemir. “We have needles and thread, but why do you need a hoop?”

“To embroider,” Ciri raised her chin and dared them to challenge her request.

Geralt shrugged. “What does it look like?”

A slow smile stretched on her face and she hopped forward to hug the beginning of her new family.

— 

It was one of the only things Ciri had left of her mother. Pavetta suggested it after several months of Ciri getting into trouble in her lessons. Whether it was private tutors or elite academies, Ciri just couldn’t  _ focus _ . The material was dry and she couldn’t pay attention, and Ciri could not handle being bored. She just couldn’t.

So she found other things to do. The problem was, everyone else wanted her to be doing schoolwork. Ciri had tried to explain that she just  _ couldn’t _ , but no one seemed to understand.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t sit still. She knew a kid like that, a nobleman’s son from one of Cintra’s older families. He couldn’t be still for more than a moment without  _ moving _ , just  _ doing _ something. For him, they discovered that if he could move in little ways, that would curb the need for the big, disruptive movements. So now, instead of jiggling his leg so much the whole table vibrated, he had a small gadget in his hands that he absently played with. It helped him focus, having something mindless to do with his hands.

That didn’t work for Ciri. She didn’t feel the need to  _ move _ – she was a Princess, she’d been taught etiquette since birth, and Princesses did not fidget – but she needed  _ something _ . If only she could figure out what.

It was her mother who had suggested it.  _ Instead of needing something to do with your hands,  _ Pavetta had said, brushing Ciri’s hair back from her face.  _ You need something to focus your mind on, to quiet everything else in your head so you can focus. _

Embroidery was a common hobby amongst noblewomen. Ciri hadn’t yet learned – she was still quite young, and staff had learned early in her life to keep Ciri away from sharp objects, lest they end up sticking out of someone else – so Pavetta taught her from scratch. Ciri’s hands were clumsy on the needle and she poked herself too many times, but she found that she truly enjoyed it. It was something her mind could spend hours focusing on, and as Ciri became more skilled, she varied patterns enough to truly keep her mind engaged.

It did wonders for Ciri’s ability to sit through her lessons, but it didn’t help with the actual material. She could focus on the embroidery for the duration of the lesson instead of picking fights or planning pranks to keep herself entertained. (Not that she didn’t still do that on occasion – someone had to keep the guards on their toes, after all.) But Ciri would be  _ so _ focused on the embroidery that she would tune out the entire lesson.

Her teachers were not amused. Neither was her family. They just couldn’t understand why she struggled so much. Hadn’t they fixed this issue already? Wasn’t she supposed to be all better now?

But she wasn’t, and she didn’t know how to describe what was wrong. She didn’t even fully understand why she couldn’t focus on her studies, even on her own terms. Books just – Ciri hated them. She honestly tried to pay attention, but a handful of paragraphs in and her mind was wandering away in too many directions, and she needed to find  _ something to do! _

Now that she could embroider the frustration out, Ciri kind of missed the fights. But Grandmother was talking about teaching her to fight with swords soon, if she could do well in school, so Ciri was  _ trying _ .

Pavetta saved the day again before Ciri failed too badly. Actually, she noticed the one area Ciri had done well in – how Cintra was founded. When Pavetta asked how Ciri had known the answers, Ciri  _ finally _ had an answer. 

She’d known the details of that period of history because their court bard just last week had sung the Glorious Epic of the House of Raven. Ciri had loved the song and she’d learned the lyrics in order to sing along. 

It seemed so simple once they realized. Ciri couldn’t focus on reading. So present the information another way! After that, the Queen hired a bard to adapt her tutors’ lessons into song. He wasn’t the best, but his rhymes were catchy. Sometimes Ciri came up with even better rhymes and for the first time, people were  _ proud _ of her! For her intelligence!

It was a heady feeling. Ciri wanted it again. She wanted to know everything about magic and monsters and everything in store for her on this new path to her future. This path where her physical skill mattered, but where knowledge was just as important and they would do anything to make sure she absorbed it before letting her into the field. 

So she told them what they needed and for once, she didn’t spend all day dreading her lessons. They were still boring sometimes, but Jaskier had made a game of how many instruments they could improvise for their songs before Vesemir reached his limit. 

And when she needed to sit and behave for a time, silent in the background, she pulled out her embroidery and thought of learning in her mother’s lap. 

She didn’t have a lot of memories of her mother, but this one, she could always keep close. And it turned out that sitting quietly in the corner was really great for spying – but only if you could manage to pay attention to the conversations around you. 


End file.
